Alea Iacta Est
by Sithwitch 13
Summary: WIP, Nightbane. A group of college students wake up on Dark Day with a very nasty suprise and are left to deal with the consequences. Ch. 1 deals with Dark Day. On hiatus until I have time to fix it.


_Author's note: This is a work in progress that I expect to take a long time. I know that not all of the details about Nightbane, Dark Day, etc. are correct (the biggest example is that Dark Day here falls on April 23, 2005 as opposed to May 6, 1999, or is it 2000? I can never remember the year..) But for the purposes of this story, that's how it works. The characters in this chapter are all based on real people. a href"http:aggiecon. and a href"http:cepheid. Variable /a> are real organizations at Texas A&M University. I don't own Nightbane, and Mary, Alan and Scott own themselves and their characters. Reviews are welcome and encouraged. I want to improve, and there's no better way to do that than with help from others. Oh, the title is Latin for "The die is cast."_

Alea Iacta Est

Ch. 1 Atrum Dies, Dark Day

I closed my eyes, trying not to scream. If I closed my eyes, I wouldn't be able to see the horrible blue glow reflecting off of my walls… the blue glow that was coming from me.

I hugged my arms close to myself, then abruptly dropped them. My skin felt weird to me, warm but clammy and a bit sticky. I swung my legs over my bed and leaned forward, but stopped when I felt an unaccustomed weight on my upper back. Come to think of it, that whole area felt weird. With eyes still closed, I reached back and my hand hit something… oddly enough, I was getting sensation from both my hand and whatever it was touching. I opened my eyes, tried to ignore the blue glow on the walls, and looked back… at wings. Big, semi-transparent bat wings.

I finally let out that scream I'd been holding back.

I heard a crash from Mary's room, followed by a shaky "Lauren?"  
"Yeah?" I called back, my voice high and scared to my own ears.

"I think… something very weird is happening."

I stood up and walked slowly to the door. A calm, rational part of my brain noted that the blue glow coming from me intensified and faded with my pulse, which was currently very rapid. I heard another crash from Mary's room. Reluctantly, I opened my door.

Mary's door was also opening. Instead of my short, blonde roommate, what appeared to be a giant black-and-silver furred, white-winged werewolf was there. I froze, and its glowing eyes widened.

We both screamed. Suddenly I felt disoriented as my view changed to one from the floor. The werewolf looked down at me and screamed again.

I tried to back away, but stopped when I realized that I couldn't feel my legs—or my arms, either—and yet I was still moving.

"Holy fuck, you're a puddle!" said the werewolf.

"Mary?"

The werewolf nodded. "Yeah."

"It's Lauren… I'm Lauren."

Mary bared a muzzle full of sharp teeth in a very unnerving grin." I know. Before you turned into a damned puddle, you looked like you… but made of Jell-o." She frowned. "And with wings. And glowing."

I calmed down a bit and willed my arm to move. Sure enough, I saw an arm emerge from… me… and flail around. I repeated the process with my other arm, and soon my upper torso—even the wings—were pulling themselves from the puddle. I looked up from watching my legs reform and noted Mary's newly wolflike face looked positively ill. "What?"

"That looks _disgusting._"

I grinned despite myself. "I'll remember that for future reference."

"So… looks like I'm a werewolf and you're some sort of goo version of you. And we both have wings."

"Your eyes are glowing, too."

"Huh."

"We can't go out looking like this."  
"Nope… I wonder if we're gonna stay this way."

"God, I hope not… we'd never be able to explain it." I sighed. "I'm gonna see if Scott's online."

"What're you gonna tell him? 'Hey Scott, don't wanna scare you, but I'm now made of glowy Jell-o and I have bat wings.'"

I paused. "Better than what I had in mind so far. Anyway, he should know. What if I look like this at the wedding? We'd have to elope… ugh, thank God he's not the psycho 'burn-her-at-the-stake' type."

"We look like this—" Mary gestured at her wings—"and you're worried about a wedding? I'm just glad Pam and Neoda are out for the weekend."  
"Eh, Neoda'd probably think it was cool. Erm, Mary?"

"Yeah?"

"According to my clock, it's 10 a.m. Look outside."

She did, then frowned. "No way it's morning, it looks more like two or three in the morning. Maybe there was a power outage or something."

"It's my computer clock. No way it's wrong."

"Something really weird is going on."

"What was your first indication?" I asked irritably. "Scott already IMed me… sounds like something's not right at the guys' apartment, either."

"Great!" Mary replied with false enthusiasm.

"I glanced back at my computer screen. "He says he and Alan'll be over in a second, and, quote, 'try not to scream.' "

"Did you tell him the same?"  
"I told him we're not quite feeling ourselves, then he said they're coming over."

Werewolf Mary shrugged. "Well, whatever it is, it can't be any worse than us."  
There was a knock at the door. I looked through the peephole and saw two tall figures covered in blankets. "Scott?"  
"It's us, open the door."

I unlocked the door and opened it, being careful to hide behind it until it was closed. The guys started removing the blankets and turned around trying to locate Mary or me. Mary poked her head into the living room. We all screamed simultaneously.

"I was wrong! It's worse!" yelled Mary, yelping as she tried to close the hall door on her wing. I was inclined to agree with her. Both Scott and Alan were covered in metal, though Scott's resembled some sort of grafted-on armor while Alan's looked like some horrific exoskeleton. Alan also had wings of shiny metal plating. Scott looked like he was bleeding all over, both from the armored plating and the barbed wire that twined around him. And worst of all, while Alan still had his face, Scott had none. I felt that horrible disorienting falling feeling again and was a puddle once more.

While this produced a fresh round of screams from the guys, it merely irritated me. I forced myself to focus and began reforming myself once more. "This is one hell of an annoying defense mechanism," I remarked as soon as my head had reformed.

Alan sat himself down gingerly on the couch, trying not to look at me. Scott walked over and poked the puddle before it could reform into my legs. I glared. "Stop that."

"Sorry. Feels more solid than I would've expected."

"Thanks," I said sarcastically, reforming my left leg and standing up. "Huh, that was quicker than last time… how the hell are you talking, anyway?"  
Scott shrugged, sending blood trickling down his shoulders. I winced and saw Mary do the same out of the corner of my eye. "I have _no_ idea. I can see, I can talk, and I can smell—" he nodded his head over towards my room. I would have blushed if I could, I knew that my mouse cage needed cleaning. "—but I honestly don't know how I'm doing it."

Alan turned on the TV and started flipping channels. He paused and looked over at our incredulous expressions. "I want to see if there's anything on the news about this."

"About us turning into monsters?"

Alan glared at me. "No, about the sun not coming up. I figure that's weird enough to be in at least the local news."

Scott nodded. "Good point." He moved over to the futon and began to sit.

"Would you mind—um, sitting on the floor?" Mary looked as embarrassed as an 8 foot tall, glowy-eyed, winged werewolf could look. "I don't think Pam would appreciate you ripping up her futon."

"Oh. Right." He sat on the floor, leaning forward so as to not snag the futon's material. I sat next to him, and Mary tried to sit on the loveseat. Her newly acquired mass and wings refused to cooperate, and she settled for leaning over the chair from behind.

It didn't take long for us to find something weird on the news. The local channels had people calling in, confused and scared, but things looked generally okay. About the strangest local occurrence seemed to be the abnormally high church attendance this morning. Considering it was a Saturday, it was pretty odd to see every church in the Bryan-College Station area packed to the point of spilling out onto the streets.

The national news, on the other hand, hinted at something very bad. All the major news networks were showing riot footage in the big cities. I was once again thankful to not be going to the University of Texas as a quick clip of a riot on 6th Street in Austin aired. I had a moment of panic as I realized that my dad and two of my cousins would most certainly be working crowd control around the state. That worry was forgotten when a grainy video popped up on CNN and showed what looked like a human with for arms and a tail blasting rioters with some sort of beam from its hands.

"It's like us!" gasped Alan as the thing was gunned down by police in riot gear.

We sat in silence as the newscaster yammered on about hoaxes and blackouts and mass hysteria. Alan turned the TV off.

"I need a drink," Mary announced shakily. She walked to the kitchen and reached for the leftover rum from piña coladas the night before. The bottle broke in her hand/paw as she grabbed it. She growled.

We sat in silence for a few seconds. "Well, I suppose we could knock over a liquor store," Scott suggested halfheartedly. "What good is being a horrible monster if you can't knock over a liquor store?"

We all grinned faintly. Alan leaned back and rubbed his forehead. "Well, this sucks."

"I dunno," I said thoughtfully. "Except for the fact that we'd probably be shot on sight if we went out, I think we look pretty cool. I mean, three-fourths of us have wings." I stretched one of my own membranous wings out in front of me and examined it. "I'm tempted to see if these are functional, but I don't think we have enough room in here."

"Please don't," said Mary, "I've already broken enough stuff in here without you adding to it." She ruffled her wings and examined her claws. "This is pretty cool, though. I fit my D-name." It was true. Her nickname given to her by the Cepheids, "Puppy", was rather descriptive of her current appearance. "Plus, I have a tail!" She thumped it on the wall as it wagged.

Alan blinked at her. "You've always wanted a tail?"

Mary looked affronted. "No! It's just… dude, I have a tail."

"Yeah, and I've sprouted barbed wire, what's your point?" asked Scott.

Mary shrugged. "Don't have a point. Just a tail."

I debated pointing out the full extent of her changes, then decided against it.

"We can't stay in here forever," Alan said suddenly. We sat thoughtfully for a bit more, and then the tinny sound of the Aggie War Hymn made us all jump.

"My cell," Mary said, turning towards her room.

"I'll get it," I said, leaping to my feet.

Mary paused, most likely remembering how the rum bottle broke in her paws. "Good idea."

I picked up her cell phone from her desk. "It's Tasha," I said, looking at the caller ID. Mary cocked her head to the side. I shrugged and pressed the "answer" button. "Hello?"

"Mary?"

"No, it's Lauren. Mary's… she can't come to the phone right now. What's up?" I tried to sound calm and nonchalant, though alarms in my mind were buzzing. Tasha had been referring to Mary and I as our respective D-names, Puppy and Zombie, since she and her fiancée had arrived from Seattle a few days before. Her use of Mary's real name set me slightly on edge.

"Alexis wants everyone to get together in the dealer's room and make sure that nobody steals anything."

I stared stupidly for a second and then slapped my palm to my forehead. _Of course, Aggiecon's this weekend!_ Aggiecon, a sci-fi convention put on by Cepheid Variable, the organization that had taken us in as scared little freshman, was not something we'd easily forget about, as we were two of the officers who put it together. "Um, we can't make it, things are a bit… hectic around here, Mary's—_we're_—not feeling so good, and—"

"Lauren? What's up?"

"Nothing!" I said, trying to keep my voice's pitch from rising in panic. "We're just not feeling ourselves." I gave a short, nervous laugh while Mary looked pained.

"I need you to answer a question, and I need you to be honest. Okay?" said Tasha, suddenly sounding serious.

"What?"

"Seriously. I won't think you're sick, I won't thing you're making anything up."

"What?" I repeated, while a cold feeling started crawling in my stomach.

"I need you to swear that you'll tell the truth—"

"Tasha, _what_?"

"Swear!"

"Fine! Now ask!"

"Okay." She paused. "Seriously, be honest, 'cuz—"

"Tasha, ask the damn question!"

"Is anything weird going on with you and Mary? Like, physically? Yes or no?"

I closed my eyes. "Define weird."

"_Yes or no_!"

"Yes."

"I thought so. I can't tell you much over the phone so I'll be over in a sec, okay?"

"Huh?"

"Just stay where you are. Don't go outside, and don't open the door unless it's me, okay?"

"…okay…"

"Good. See y'all in a while." She hung up, leaving me more worried and confused than before.

"What did she want?" called Scott from the living room.

"She knows something's up and she's coming over."

Scott snorted, and the sheer absurdity of someone with no face making that noise made me blink. "Well that certainly makes _me_ feel better."

Mary glared at him. "Sarcasm isn't helping."

I shrugged. "Neither is anything else."

"Good point."

"So…"

I gave a weak grin. "Anything other than doom on TV?"

As it turned out, there wasn't much. The only channel not showing riot footage was HBO, and while none of us was in the mood to watch _Beverly Hills Cop_, we left it on. We were even less in the mood for silence. After about a half hour, there was a knock at the apartment's door.

"About damn time," Scott grumbled. I gave him a look and got up to answer the door. I looked through the peephole to see Tasha and Bad Andy standing outside, muttering to each other and looking around like they expected to be followed.

I opened the door, once again hiding behind it. Mary, Alan, and Scott all tried crouching down or otherwise hiding. "I'm behind the door," I said, trying to make sure they wouldn't be scared when I was suddenly behind them.

Surprisingly, their reactions weren't that bad. They were definitely unnerved, but didn't scream. "Definitely weird, huh?" I asked.

"Just a bit," said Bad Andy, grinning. Another former Cepheid, he had been living in Houston for the past year and Mary and I had only seen him for the first time in months the day before. Presumably, he had given Tasha a ride over, as she had flown in and didn't know how to drive, anyway.

Tasha looked us over. "Hm… y'all definitely got some variety here. Mary, you finally fit your D-name." Mary gave a pointy grin.

"So what's going on?" asked Alan. "You seem pretty unaffected."

"Yeah, I'm not a Nighbane, but I've seen worse than y'all before."

"Nightbane?" asked Scott.

"Yeah," said Bad Andy. "Nightbane are humans who can turn into supernatural monsters."

We stared blankly. Tasha sighed. "We're not Nightbane, obviously, but Meri is." Meri was a former Cepheid who had been something of a mentor to Tasha and never failed to help us during Aggiecon. "It was her idea for a bunch of us to check up on people… apparently Cepheid's picked up a bunch through the years."

"How'd she know what was going on? And why'd she send you?"

"She woke up this morning, and aside from the obvious sun-not-rising thing, she couldn't change back to her Façade. Her human form," she added, noting our looks of bewilderment. "Add a few other older Cepheids waking up changed when they'd never shown they could before, and the fact that they could sense a bunch of new Nightbane in town where they'd never been, and some of the elders got worried." She paused again. "Apparantly they can sense other Nightbane, I've never been real clear on that. Anyway, things ain't exactly great for Nightbane, especially not today."

"We noticed," I said, thinking of the one we'd seen killed on TV.

"On the upside, you get a cool Morphus—monster form—and spiffy powers," said Bad Andy, looking uncharacteristically somber.

"And the downside is…?" prompted Alan.

"You're probably gonna have to make yourselves scarce _real_ fast."

"What? Why?" asked Mary, while the rest of us looked incredulous.

"Usually, Nightbane can lay low and live pretty normal lives—"

"Usually?"

Tasha glared at Scott and continued. "—but some of the elders, and more importantly some of the Nightbane they're in contact with, are getting some really bad feelings today. They wanted us to find as many new Nightbane as we could, since they obviously can't go outside and do it themselves. They wanted us to give you some information and advise you to run. They're gonna be doing the same, fast."

"So you want us to give up everything because of a _feeling_ Meri had?" Mary sounded outraged and looked furious and scary. "I'm gonna graduate in two weeks. I'm going to the Air Force in a _month_. Excuse me, but fuck that."

"What's so bad that they want us to drop everything and leave?" asked Alan.

"Meri didn't say," Tasha replied. "But if her contacts are advising it, it's probably _really_ bad."

We were silent for a few seconds. "Look," she said, folding her arms and looking down, "we gotta go. There's a few other people we need to talk to."

"Who?" asked Mary.

"Meri said it's probably best if you don't know," answered Andy.

"That's a bit melodramatic," Scott said darkly.

"I'm just saying what she told us," said Tasha. She walked over to the fridge and started writing on one of the markerboard memo pads. "Here's her number. Call her later if you need, but she'll be calling you at some point. She'll have some stuff to tell you."

"Thanks," I said lamely.

Tasha gave me a half grin. "Sorry about all this."

"You didn't cause it," said Alan, looking at the closed window blinds. Presumably, it was still dark out.

"Well… bye." Bad Andy and Tasha walked to the door and let themselves out. Alan, Mary, and I echoed them, Scott gave a halfhearted wave, and they were gone.

"Well, that was less than insightful," grumbled Mary.

I shrugged. "Well, we know we're not alone and there's a name for what we are. 'Nightbane'… I like it."

"You would," said Scott. I'm sure if he had a face he would have been grinning. He knew I had a taste for horror and the macabre. I gave him a mock-cutesy grin.

"So in theory, we're not stuck like this forever," mused Alan.

"Yeah. It's been a while, but last time I saw Meri, she looked fine. No fangs, wings, or tails. Mary thumped hers against the wall. Whether by accident or for emphasis, I didn't know.

By now, it was past one p.m. I'd been awake and stuck as a monster—in my Morphus—for about three hours. Alan's stomach growled, making Mary, me, and presumably Scott smile. Alan's skinny form and voracious appetite had become something of a running joke among us for a long while.

Mary got up and started rummaging around the kitchen. I jumped up to help her, not wanting her to break things, a good chunk of which belonged to our absent roommates, or get fur in whatever food she managed to find. Between the two of us, we scrounged up assorted leftovers, chips, and soda. HBO had begun to show Matrix Revolutions at some point. I half paid attention while I ate, trying to avoid looking at Scott. It's really disgusting to watch someone with no face eat. It resembled osmosis more than anything else I could think of.

We passed the afternoon quietly. I got a call from my mom around four, and was relieved to hear that my dad and cousins were fine. Mary had a record short conversation with her mother, mostly because I was the one to dial and hold the phone for her. The novelty of being big scary monsters had worn off.

We sat there, not paying attention to movie after movie. I had worked for a while on manipulating my newly plasmoid form, stretching my right hand and arm to various lengths, widths, and shapes until it got boring.

Mary looked over at the microwave clock, which read 10:33 and sighed. "This sucks."

"Tell me about it. This barbed wire stings," said Scott, stretching.

"I had been wondering about that," said Alan. He turned to me. "Does your arm hurt?"

"Why the hell would my arm be hurting?" I asked, confused.

Mary pointed at my upper left arm. "Well, it looks pretty nasty."

I glanced down and noticed that there were three deep gashes in my upper arm, where my deltoid was located. They oozed red blood, but every now and then the blue flames that made me glow would vaporize the blood. Now that I saw that, I became aware of a dull throb there. I looked up and glared. "When were y'all gonna tell me about this?" I demanded.

Alan shrugged. "I thought you already knew about it. They don't look like something you'd ignore."

I opened my mouth to respond, closed it, and sat back, pulling my wings around me like a cloak. "This really sucks."

At some point, we fell asleep. When we woke up several hours later, the sun was out and shining. We were still monsters, but Dark Day, as it came to be known, had passed.


End file.
